The tic click tic click
is a slick sick trick
of time playing with
my mind,

some twitch
a phantom itch
with no obvious
cause for it,

a voice dragging me
from the comfort of sleep,
yelling out my name,
so I get up to see,
but there is no one
out there calling me.

I am scared
because my family
has a history
of mental illness
in varying degrees
of severity,
and I am afraid
that one day
it won’t be me
questioning my sanity,
but a clinical certainty.

The broad brush is poisonous
Still you paint painful pictures
Red, yellow, brown, white
Forgetting the sweet minutia
Unlearning the shades and variations
The beauty in our treasured tints
I look closer at your simple statements
Even in your wheel of colors
I can see the potential
Life is sunburnt, light
Bache, pink, jaundiced,
Dark and lightly tanned
Plain or with flocks of freckles

This is my sort of suicide letter.
I am letting you know that
you may not understand
but tonight I am going to die man.

I am tired of being dried
by the blood crusted black water
that rushes like a river
right over the heart of my hopeful soul.

Tonight I’m killing that angry *******
who despises me more than anyone
but in hating me he has loved me
cause hate is so much better than apathy.

At least that barbed wired *******
acknowledges me as worthy
of some sort of recognition.

So, I stare into the dark mirror painting of my life.
I smile as my reflection snarls,
“I am going to **** you, you *******.”

This is my sort of suicide letter.
I used my blood to write it,
took my reflection to task,
broke the glass into a hundred
jagged pieces
hoping I wouldn’t have to look at me,
but each fragment stared back you see
a sick distorted version of the person
I wanted to ****.

So, I took the most convenient shard,
then scratched a map straight to my heart
and as tiny tributaries flow away from
my cold and soon to be numb body
I smile greedily painting my poetry
in small lines of red that I hope will be read
when I am finally dead.

So, this is my sort of suicide letter.
I wrote it all in my head.
You will never really read it,
but I can see it perfectly
every night before I go to bed.

Listen to America? by graff1980 #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/graff1980/america

Tears mark my heart
I bare this cross
I took the scars
Blood paid the cost
And all I see before me
Is plains of death
Stone statue families

I’m coming home
I dug the earth
I marked the ground
I heard the bodies
Make no sound
And all I am
Is all they were
I’m coming home
To sleep no more

Hands turn to fists
I have no will
To wish for this
My body breaks
Like the last glass dish
I lay my head down
One more time
After I jot down
My last rhyme

No cloud to carry
No one left to bury
No need to hurry
No need to worry
I’m coming home
One last time

Teary eyes
Walking bodies
Working stiffs
Echoing
Losing
Everything
Originality
Disappears
Factory motions
Zoloft emotions
One sidewalk
Looks the same
One uniformed man
Looks the same
Loosing names
For sign in numbers
Citizens are just social security cards
Like Bob Segar said
I feel like a number
And every stranger is just a digit more

The diabetes has defeated me
And I am one leg down
Cut off like prime beef
But it was as diseased as me
One eye fades
Milky white clouds
Make their way
Half of my poor sight
Has already said goodnight
Then a mild stroke
My face doesn’t work
As well as it did before
Then a heart attack
Loved ones come and go
They may not know
I will be gone soon
But they tell me they love me
And I say thank you

I’m tired of love poems
Of sonnets that lie
Waiting to capture
That sweet kiss
That deep seated wish
Of eternal love
But the truth is
Even love is impermanent
Under this firmament
Above the ground
Love can be found
Love may be sound
But people change
And promises exchanged
Can’t always be maintained
So give me a love poem
That licks its’ lips
At an angel’s hips
That shakes with fevered desire
Run its’ flaming course till it expires
Then finds it end peacefully
Buried beneath memory’s tree
Till then it’s me loving you
Loving me

Brown eyes
Brown hair
Down there
Skin folded or inverted in
Split ****
Who would go through this
If it wasn’t important
New hair
Hormone treatment
Doesn’t deserve
Your resentment
Life never offers
A perfect placement
Most of the time
We got to make
Our own happy space
New life
No more dissonance
Between who you are
And who you are
It’s more compassionate
To let someone be
Who and what
They want to be
Then to make them suffer
For your sense of normality

I am flesh and blood,
kin to the sins you refuse
as you waste your life
allowing yourself
to be misused.

A thousand pleasures
delayed or denied
by crooks who
have lied and pried
where they have
no right to.

They spite and smite you.
As you go through
early embalmment,
because you spent
your whole life
decaying prematurely,

That’s why
when you see me
I am still smiling,
laughing, and enjoying
all those forbidden fruits
you call sin.

When she sings I cry
I am stuck on stilts
Kissing clouds
Suckling on her voice
Supping up the gravy of her thighs
Her music
Makes me feel

The soft muscles
Her tight abs
Behind those glasses
Light eyes sparkle
White lies
Dancing in the lyrics
For anyone who wants to feel it

She is like ******
My addiction
And I keep coming
And coming back again
Running my hands through her hair
But that is in dreams

Life is when dreams end
And I come back down to earth
Crashing
Comet cracking the crust
Spitting and spewing musical dust
And if lust isn’t enough
Then I must
Keep my distance

They resist
and I respect this
social movement
connective bliss
of purposefulness

They agitate
and aggravate
but in this state
they perpetuate
their own intolerance

They volunteer
to make the sacrifice
but look down
on those
who do not try
to give every thing

They say
silence is violence
but I object
They do not
know or suspect
because they
never bothered to
look or listen to
the centuries
of suffering
I waded through
to find the glue
to bind us to
the deeper truth

They say
to do nothing
is to support
while they purport
to be moral magistrates
while looking down
on me

With venom in
their gleaming eyes
they reflect
the attitude
of those they despise
the other enemies
who are ill-informed
to storm the gates
of those who accept the hate
and perhaps
even celebrate
their own stupidity

But they
are not my enemies
Though they
frustrate me
with their
mindlessness
their sublimation
to their political
philosophical
and spiritual beliefs
I still love them
for they are my family
even though
they make me
want to bang my head
against the wall
till I fall
and have to crawl
off to die

You see
you are also judging
confusing
your own identity
obfuscating
while stretching
and skating
around your own
ill-fitting patriarchy
When you fill those pews
when you let
the church use you
submitting to
the found fathers
of the philosophy
you eschew
the one you
view askew
while not listening to
other minorities
who were oppressed

I do not march on
because like the strangers
you claim need to be unfriended
I am a prisoner of this system
of consumerism
this schism
between a better world
and the one we live in

And your ideal matriarchy
does not fulfill
the objective of
a good will
because I lived
in a world of pain
created by the mother figure
Sustained by
the other women
The angry math teacher
the confused lesbian
The frustrated poet
who objected
to my objection
of her religious indoctrination

I struggled to share the truth
directly and indirectly to you
While you walk feeling attacked
because your identity was attached
to certain fake realities

But just for the record
I am with those at Standing Rock
I am with the mothers and fathers
of the Black Lives matters
I am with the masters of the metal moms
who stand strong with their awesome *******
that no man will be allowed to grab
unless she permits this
I do resist this hate and violence
but you cannot equate silence with said violence

Despite my kind heart
I hit my steering wheel so hard
when Trump proclaimed
Most of those people were
professional protester
and his fellow jester
just repeated said claim
My knuckles bruised
almost bled
and I cried for a while
while I lied in bed
because I have been fighting
this battle inside
and outside of my head
for most of my life
and it took you all
this long to come along for the ride
but I will not demonize the confused
the betrayed, belittled, and abused
no matter how much you want them to
Not everyone can feel
exactly like you
Now my struggle has become
four pages to much
when all it breaks down to is
that I am still in love
with humanity’s hopeful nature
Even though it is still stumble
in confusion
on all sides of the issues

I'm lonely
but only
temporarily
using these
words sparingly
as I search
this dark area
for some sign
of hope.

Weeping with pre-grief
because I see
uncertain future possibilities
as inevitable tragedies.

My brothers and sisters
seem strange and deranged,
lost in cycles of hate and pain
that drain the vein
of what’s humane.
  
So, I want to rewrite
the wiring inside
that has them dying
like others do
with withering emotions
that cause violence to brew
the kind that silences
the few who
would speak truth
about this mess.

I live in a neighborhood were
Even if you got a job
You’re still barely getting by
Hardly get to live your life
When your bosses can work you
Anytime they like
Any shift day, or night,
Part, full, or overtime
While the yard gets grassy
Cops come passing out ordinance tickets
Frisbees float away falling into thickets
Surrounded by various forms of scrap metal
While bricks once baked and harden
Crumble to dust
The foundation cracks and busts
And your house comes crumbling down
Letting critters come and go
This is my block
What a shocking show

She broke her own heart
For a love that was not even fit enough
To bare her weight
To stare and say
Sweet promises for today
The feather fell
Flying lightly in the breeze
Cold as ice
Her skin was twice
As heavy as death
Her sorrow was as deep
As the Marianas Trench
Left her drenched in despair
The places where
She put her hopes for love’s return
That love once spurned
Could be restored
Instead her tumblr is erased
Her facebook is replaced
With a blank face
And old messages
Left unanswered

It is stale and unstable
I write on a wobbly table
Begging for the words to come
Longing for any inspiration
In my desperation I would settle
For a simple score, haiku
Limerick, poem, or sentence
But I am a blank slate
An empty page that awaits
The right lightening to strike





The work does not work itself out
Word will not flow
So the wisdom falls short
I would crack my cranium
To find the mind
That was a cyclone of creativity
The pain would inspire me
I direly need something
Cause this is my second poem today
About not being able to write a poem

I dream of minds expanding
roads diverging
from learning
and growing
in a garden of
grand and changing ideas.

I dream of wonderlands
that consist of;
What if love
conquers hate?
What if curiosity
conquers ignorance?
What if technology
and language
conquers the distance
between what
you and
I understand?

I dream of new waves
traveling in space,
signals that remain
long after we pass
that continue to ask
all the questions we ask
and even the ones we have
yet to get to.

I dream of clarity
that clears the fog
then more insights
that expand our senses
with the consequences
of peace, love, and understanding
of people handling
hearts with care
so those who know despair
find that they don’t have to live there
that they can visit their pain,
learn from that ache,
and educate others
not insulating them from suffering
but offering well-informed solace
and a chance to make
everything better than it is.

The quarter is seldom given
and change must be taken.

People in power will
seldom cede
a single cent
of authority.

Unless, they are forced to.

From the mainframe
That brought you war games
Head-shots for **** points
Team death match battles
Close to realistic war scenes
On your plasma tv screen
Here your enemies scream
As their heads explode
See your IQ drop
While dexterity improves
As your gaming console
Get used to control
A digital killing machine
Pumped up world war dreams
Cause death is a game
And killing is great
And now our children are well trained
To fly our missile and machine gun
Loaded drones
and shoot down the enemies
Of our sick bloated
Corporate corrupted
Fake free state

Tears scar
my fevered
red face
as I rage
against
these
unites states.

Pillars of pain
pushed to the point
of bullets and
blood stained
t-shirts.

To young,
to run
far enough
away
that day,

Now politicians
send thoughts and
prayers
but that is
much too little
to even be late.

The media
garners
silent stares
of inaction
while anonymous
internet commenters
call grieving parents
crisis actors.

facebook posts
of dividing positions
put friends in
combative opposition.

I would like
to be fair and neutral,
but the roots
run red and deep
as this dark sea of grief
rises from its sedated state.

So,
I keep on asking
how many more children
have to die
before people do
something right.

I wish I would have known you better
Spent more time together
When I was younger
Still I remember your soft strange skin
Your quite smile played out every now and then
Your ancient mariner look
Though I never saw you crack a book
I learned later on you were well read
Now you are just as dead
All I have are dying embers, sparks of memory
Losing their heat inside of me
I wish I had known you better
But this wish is just regret
And you can learn to forget
What you used to regret
It just so happens that hasn’t happened for me yet

It was not a secret shame
I kept closeted to protect
My family name
I just came out
Questioning
Everything
Myself
My town
My teachers
**** the preachers
My books
My loves
My looks
I denied nothing
Truth is in the searching
A cycle
Knowing that we do not know
Finding old inclinations archaic
Finding one’s own weakness
And embracing it
Then destroying it
So I came out confused
Still taking ****
But open
And ready to learn

Let us pretend
That this dark portent
Is a potent precursor
To your painful pursuer
The perfect person
To persecute you
You have no defense
Against this prosecutor
No safe haven
No soft heaven
No monster to placate
Till you find a safe place
Just the terror you wear there
On your cherubic childlike face

When the last brown leaf
Fall beneath your feet
From the last soft breeze

When the last wave falls
And the shiny green brine
Is only a shade in your mind

When the last wolf howls
And the last bird leaps
Trying to soar
But falling before
The last wind
Can catch him

When the clouds come no more
And metal works
Lay scattered
Along with the shattered
Brick buildings

When the last mother
Touches the tiny fingers
Of the last born baby
Knowing no more
Will be born

When life is only a static echo
Spreading out in space
And this human race
Can only be known
By radio and tv signals

It is a world of randomness.
Photos play in
their digital displays.
Soft impression of
Of wet and salted sands
leave an imprint
of her sacred dance.

Another photo
catches her
soft features
strained in
fantastic effort.
Like a perfect sketch
her legs
are outstretched midair
in opposite directions.  

A gray cement cylinder
with open circles
cradles her soft body.
She is a changeling
that bends with
it’s hard contours.

Switching with
a finger’s flick,
finds two black ropes
that hold the hopes
of the young dancer
hanging down
unbound
as she is.

With the fierceness
Of Artemis
this bare foot goddess
sweeps her feet
across the
white winter grounds.
Her steps are
hot enough
to melt the snow.
Later she
enshrouds herself
in a transparent veil.
The melody does not stop.
She moves
like the figure in a  
faberge egg music box,
never allowed
to rest until
she breaks.

Beautiful and powerful,
she blooms like the flowers
her admirers plucked
to place pink petals
at her feet.

She is eloquence.
Arms outstretched
to open the doors
that lead to a
warm summer dreamland
which all her devotees
wish to explore.

Folds of blue fabric
fill her tiny hands,
rippling like water
hit by strange skipping stones.
She ***** the fabric forward
up, down, and back,
trying to soar  
with the fury of her dance.

One knee rises.
Unfeathered arms open,
flowing back, up, and away.
This long legged
blonde blue eyed child flys,
a canary in the coal mine
barely concealed
urging us to feel;
Frozen in time
on Instagram
to be seen
and soon sidecrolled away.
A queen like Titania,
fairy winged,
a thing of dreams.
Nature’s surroundings
obfuscate her
transient existence.

Her body bends and sways
with the wonders of
old orchestras and concertos.
Till, eve falls
and December takes the dancer.
The soft swimmer shimmers
in the soon to be frozen water.
Feathers fall from the Swan’s
long lost daughter,
and the well used
dance shoes
refuse to move.

The hemlock grove grows poisonously
Paralyzes our youth
Nightshade in the everglades
The wonder fades
While centaurs and unicorns run away
Looking for a way to evade
Human beings and their dark adult dreams

It’s not the fairy queen’s fault
When she falters and falls
Failing us all
Those clear and glittering butterfly wings
Come missing
Acid tears come hissing
Macho men start *******
She is betrayed by our passions

The web of leaves caught
On the spider weaved branches
Of the big bad business man
Forgetting the bridge to Terribithia,
Fantasia, Neverland, Oz and Wonderland
Losing Alice, Dorothy, and Peter Pan

The innocence of a child
Who no longer dances
Decimated dreams
Fairy-tale creatures
Lose their way
Lose their voice and cannot play
Forget how to sing that way

Mothers weeps
Fathers eyes us all sternly
Tell us to get better earnings
And the myth of childhood fades away
To some long ago forgotten age

Here’s to you
With your glassy eyes
I drink my scotch
And watch you die
TV girl
Fake blood and gore
Genre queen
Screaming horror
Elm Street
On Friday the Thirteenth
Hear me holler
I know what you did
Last summer
What a fling
What a dream
Haunted my teens
Hunting your victims
And I still don’t know why
I enjoyed
Watching them die

To be seen
By amorous eyes
Feel the friction from
Those positions
Of paralleled affections
With her long and
Glamorous thighs
Soft curling tongue
Athletic with desire’s
Fevered urgency

To lap love’s
Pooling juices

To linger
With fingers
Rolling softly
Across her skin
Hear her sighing

To feel her flesh vibrating
Her breath climaxing
In unison
Then sated
After ***’s fury has abated

To speak and listen
While cuddling
What a wonderful
Weekend that would be

This is the last poem
The month’s end

They lie in the rubble
As I take it all in
Crumbling figurines
Little toy soldiers
Falling
Little rag doll children
Dying

The wind does not whistle
Beautifully
Only mournful sobs
Sound here in this horror show

There is not enough power
In my heart to stop
What so many have started
So I shatter it on purpose
Break each beating ventricle
Into a thousand plus jagged parts

Red with life’s blood
Wet with life’s love
I pass out each piece
Giving as much power as I have
To give
Morbid love I know

Fractured and scattered among the nightmare
A song rings
The saint in me sings
Give it all to them

The bandaged people cringe and crawl
To them I cry
I love you all

Where do all the lost boys go?
The rag tag scruffy band
of tiny merry men
playing Robin hood again,

The kings of
flying fancy,
dragons dancing
in the fire lit night,
the little wrathful
waking warriors,

The lonely eyes,
with scraped
and soon to be
scabbed up knees,

The oily skin
and dripping tears
accompanied by
snot that drip drops,

The searchers,
tiny adventurers,
monster hunters,

The little victims,
who follow the whims
of cruel dictators,
of vile violators,
of demon desecrators
on their soft flesh?

When all the madness
seems to pass
and only the stillness
finally lasts,
when they finally
silence the bad,
quieting
the nightmares
they had,

after peering
through
windows,
searching
the artic cold
of winter’s
harsh white snow,
searching for
a safety
they have never
known,

please tell me
cause I don’t know,
where do
the lost boys
go to?

She is in part
a viper,
a poisonous plague
upon my heart,
venom spitter
dark adder
damming me
from a distance,
crumbling my
resistance.

She is dangerous
but I do not mind,
I find I like that kind
of danger.

Come forth to dance my fairy kin
For long have I grieved the loss of innocence
Fluttering wings of fanciful dreams
Where children and cherubs sing
Where teddy bears parade and play
Till the picnic prepared is displayed
and they can devour delicious honey treats
Where goblins conceal themselves admiring
The playful Pegasus’s acrobatic flying
Where guardians with soft pearly feathered wings
Protect all young and saintly human beings
Where spirits offer solace to combat the grief
Of knowing that all things living will be deceased
It is a land of legends, fairytales, and myths
Where only children, fools, and dreamers visit
And I miss it dearly
For in adulthood I have been many years
Separated from that fantastic realm

It is the soldier born of blood
That finds his bath irrevocably red
Crimson stains cloud his head
Not a part of him comes home unbled
But the bloodiest of wounds
The bleedings that never stops
Does not come from cut, or contusion
Not from the legions leaking lesions  
But from the dreams that wake him screaming
Turning a once wise and strong warrior
Into a broken ****** baby doll

Time is a thief
swift of feet
with nimble fingers
plucking the chords
of harmony
And dissonance;
Terrible and frightening
taking but never giving
a single second back.


Nature
Melting
Sounds
Disintegrating
Dissipation
Shadows of shapes
That never existed
Alone in the universe



When will she speak again,
play hide and seek with friends,
find new tidings,
night ridings,
space adventures,
and fairy-tale family
love and play
like her younger days,
instead of this
dull mist
of well employed
boredom?

I hope that when you feel love for yourselves and others that it becomes a driving force, that inspires acts of daily kindness, and courteousness. I want love to be contagious, so that when you smile at someone, or help them out they can't help but smile back and pass it on.
-2010

The Goddess whispers love
And I am enchanted
But it’s not for me
She writes it perfectly
Passion verbally exploding
Reminding me
How lonely
It is to be
Me

Stanza after stanza of passion
Each syllable is a finger
Forcefully plunged into my heart
She impales me
Stabbing deeply
Slicing from throat to sac
Then around the back
And bleeding me in reverse

In her words
Dull emotions
Are reinvigorated
Phantom organs
Come to life again
Then
Melt away
Cause the facts say
That I will never ever
Be loved in such
A beautiful way

If you are black, they can,

shoot up your car,
come into your home
without probable cause,
beat you down,
****** you on the streets
while being recorded,
demonize you after the fact,
get away with it.

If you are black
and take a stand
you will be seen as the enemy
by at least half of your society,
even if your trying to
help your community.

You will be imprisoned unjustly,
and even after you’re free
they will try to prevent
or impede
your right to vote.

This is not a fake news reality
this is something that is
quite openly done.

You broke your back
Bled yourself
Wrapped your hands
Around your own neck
Stripped and scratched
Till you were a walking
Talking wound
But little brother
I still love you

It was a
suicidal game
of self-destruction,
as I walked slowly
on the white winter ground.

Four or more
sleep deprived nights
because of some
drug a doctor prescribed
that nearly fried
my already fragile mind.

For the first time in my life
I decided to give cigarettes a try.
Cancer be ******
because I had already been
******* condemned.
So, I smoked them.

Pushed to the edge,
I punished myself
with cold indifference
popping the last bits
of this sick prescription.

Earlier,
I asked the doctor
if I could take these
before I went to bed.
I guess he didn’t
listen to a word I said.
Was it his ignorance
or merely negligence
that nearly did me in?

On the fourth night,
I watched my best friend
collapse from his asthma
because he was
running to call the cops
to come and save me.

His efforts made me laugh,
as I indifferently considered
just finding a place to hide
while I waited to wither and die.

Pygmalion
Do not fall in love
With your illusion
Your marble lust
Will not serve you well
Will not help you grow
But see you soften
And become stale
For though your love
May be statuesque
She will chip
Falling to dust
Never learning
How to be
A beautifully unique
Human being
For she is only
A whisper
Crossing the void
And coming to nothing

Outside is the hive mind where it hurts to hunt for facts
Were the bees will sting me to prevent things from being seen
So I stow the words in a honeyed larva
A sweet secret space where no one has to face
Any uncomfortable issues
And from that hole is birthed a blackness
Soft sickles slice through the sadness
Forgets to destroy the madness
And I lose myself
In one drop of delicious conformity after another

It is the face of a wraith,    
skin sagging,
flesh falling,
goosebumps crawling
with supernatural
sorrow and fatigue.

Bone thin,
Sobbing,
ancient pains
rising
from some
inner lining
of desperate
darkness.

Living corpse
in constant pain,
choppy movements
of echoed intent,
only a shadow
of the former
person.

Drawn in
an anorexic
frame
this specter
reigns
where once
a full bodied
figure
danced
in joy.

Nervous glances
fearing
they might catch this
emotional leprosy.
Society let her be,
slowly rotting
from the inside out.
Till she was hollowed.
Till even razor blades
could not scrape away
the suffering stain
and pain
of a relentless
existence.

The factory is dingy.
Black floors wear
oil lines, deep scratches,
and metal scraps.

The tools are worn
with rust and age lines
like the ones in ancient pines.

Giant fans block out
all normal sounds.
Spider webs cling precariously
to the orangeish red moving things
that hangs from the ceiling.

Cracked and ***** large garage doors
beep like garbage trucks backing up.
Rotten wood rises. Wind rushes in
cooling my sweat soaked skin.

A rusted cage openly displays
all the expensive implements
the workers need to get through
the long nights and longer days.

Office in the middle;

Black and green machines
run so loudly.
Scattered all around
those rough machines
are stacks of metal stairs,
spools of metal wires,
and puddles of water
which from the roof
that needs worked on.

This place is ***** and chaotic
out in the boonies.
I like it way more
then the antiseptic one
I worked at before
because it has more history
and character.

I didn’t find my faith
behind a wooden pew,
from the singing choir,
or the books that I looked through.
The crucified figure
just hangs up there to wither
whether I believe
or feel I’ve been deceived.

I got no faith to speak of
I got no god to seek but
I can bare this burden
by myself.

Calvary ain’t doing it for me,
and despite the lie
salvation doesn’t come from,
a sip of symbolic wine.
You eat fake ******* flesh
and say that it is fine,
but I don’t want to waste
anymore of my time.

I got no faith to speak of
I got no god to seek but
I can bare this burden
by myself.

You can keep your wooden cross,
and I will take all that I loss
though the burden maybe heavy
it won’t crack my back
cause I like my facts
they keep me standing
semi steady.

I got no faith to speak of
I got no god to seek but
I can bare this burden
by myself.

She jumps for the moon
Her only grief is gravity
Has a will of its’ own

The stars twinkle flirtatiously
Flaunting their love for her
Burning intensely with infinity
Making her yearn to burn with them
And within them

Fighting the will of earth’s
Gravitational field
She lunges again
Falling harder and farther

Facing a bruised bottom and much despair
She kisses the stars goodnight
And heads off alone
To sleep and dream of her starry lovers

I am a sick *******
Sweet friend
Emotion fiend
Seeking stories
Wanting your
gorgeous pain
To hold
To harbor
The albatross
At the arbor
Flying to the dying ship
That weight around your neck
That anchors you to ****
That razor blade
You want to use to cut it
I am a vampire of sorrows
******* up injustice
Then spitting these flitting verses
Back out like sputum
So others can use them
To make us all more human
Though my wrists cramp with heartbreaks
I still write at night by lampshade
Sipping small vials of nightshade
Hoping to take your pain away
And plant posies with all that poison

I used to be a fanboy
With those boxed toy
Played those movies
In my head
Daydreaming instead of
Remaking my own reality
Sitting in a fixed position
No slick transition
To something better
Just wearing my red
Dead head sweater
Never even wrote this letter
Just let life run its will
Right over my heart
Until
I was as stiff in death
As I had been in life

We are a species
with the ability
for self-directed
evolution.
We can decide
what qualities
are propagated.
We can be educated
not anesthetized by media lies.

We can be better
if we choose to be,
when we choose to be.

We can be
a great collective,
a shining light
that spans the stars,
extolling
the virtues
of creativity,
compassion,
and curiosity.

We can be
the heart
of humanistic priorities
that values
all of humanity
and treasures
this reality.

The beatings were never super brutal. They were just the rough thud of her working out her frustration. The real pain came when I resisted or when I expected something better. The moment I forgot who and where I was she would remind with the belt, a ***, a boot, a wooden paddle, the broom handle, or whatever implement. The only way I could come out a winner was to illustrate my anguish. I tried being strong but the stronger I was the more enraged she became. So, instead I gave her a way to feel more powerful, enough whines, whimpers, and tears to satisfy her rage but leave me less scarred then I might have been.

A patriot, a service man
stood proud and let his
American flag fly.

Served his nations
when they called,
distinguished service
and honorably discharged.

A purple heart
with some PTSD,
told his family
the V.A. would
take good care of me.

The president and congressmen
upped the military budget by billions,
and as soon as that passed
went ahead and tried to get
servicemen’s health care cut.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about any of us.

Well, he pinched and saved
for most of his days,
struggling to get by.

Worked very hard
to finally start
a business that was
close to his heart.

Every year he barely managed
to make ends meet,
but was grateful to be
in this land of opportunity
where he could support his family
doing what he loved.

A virus closed almost
all of the businesses
in his neighborhood,cont.
so the government
said they would
bailout small businesses like his,
passed a billed
swore the promise
was fulfilled,
but he never saw a cent,
from the federal government,
cause almost all that aid
went to help out
major party donors.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about the man who runs
a small business.

One kid grew up
trying to live up
to his parent’s expectations;
Got a fast-food job
while he was in high school,
then worked his way through
to go to a good college.
Four years and student loans
got him out in the world
and on his own.

Got a decent job,
to pay down the debt,
but along the way he
became really sick,
and the health insurance
barely covered a fraction of it.
Now he is drowning
in an ocean of bills,
from disease that may still
**** him,
and his prescriptions
are practically poison.

It’s a cold hard fact
that this country lacks
real human decency.
Should have learned by now,
we are just the fatted cows
that are culled to feed corporate greed.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about you or me.